Announcement:

After an editorial pause that lasted longer than I had expected

“Either/or”: A 1983 Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda poster by P. Letunov. By placing a bottle labelled “vodka” opposite a baby, the poster presents the alcohol problem as a social issue threatening the family and future generations.

On 4 June, I announced that I had begun reworking the first eight instalments of the series I have been publishing on the blog under the general heading "Stalinism and Alcoholism in the Soviet Union", with a view to eventually turning them into a small booklet. As I noted in that announcement, this was by no means simply a matter of placing the blog posts one after another. It required strengthening the internal connections between the texts, expanding certain sections, removing repetitions, filling in gaps, and reshaping the existing material into a more coherent draft suitable for booklet format.

Today, 4 July 2026, I have completed this stage. The reworking and expansion of the first eight instalments has produced a text that now runs to some 80 pages in Word. In this way, the essays previously published on the blog in separate parts have, for the time being, been brought together into a more solid and coherent whole - one that may be regarded as the first major section of the draft booklet.

This, of course, does not mean that the work is complete. The series will continue from where it left off. After writing and publishing the new instalments, I intend to review the entire draft booklet once more, make the necessary additions, and then share the text with friends who may be able to spare the time to read it, opening it up for discussion and inviting their comments and suggestions.

Because of this editorial work, I was able to update the blog only to a limited extent for about a month. Yet this pause did not stem from abandoning the project; on the contrary, it arose from the need to put the sections published so far on a firmer footing. Now that this stage is behind me, I shall resume publishing on the blog more regularly.